


Time's a Crooked Bow

by mixolydias



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Divergence, M/M, and also sad, what if samot went to mind jail and things got SPICY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-21 03:46:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10677030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mixolydias/pseuds/mixolydias
Summary: A letter. A dream. A warm breeze through an open window.





	Time's a Crooked Bow

**Author's Note:**

> written after a conversation about what samot's mind jail would be like. the logistics of arrell's bubbles definitely don't align with canon but sssshh let me have the angst
> 
> spoilers for the finale of marielda and minor spoilers for the s3 rosemerrow arc

_You won’t even realize that you’re inside of it. It’s like a dream._

The edges of Arrell’s letter had gone as soft as wolf fur under his fingers as Samot read the proposal for the sixth time under lamplight. A rare light rain rattled the window of his study, and he grasped at the empty air where his cloak should’ve been, before dropping his hand.

It was foolish, Samot knew. Unprecedented. He knew that Arrell was prone to latching onto desperate plans with a kind of fervor that reminded Samot of his younger self. But there was something in the confidence that Arrell wrote with in his most recent letter that gave him pause. The ink seemed heavier, darker on the page than in their previous correspondences.

There was also the nature of these pocket universes that Arrell spoke of. As detailed in the letter, making use of one of them would give Samot one of the most important things that the Erasure had taken from him— time. There just wasn't enough time.

Before, he could fold back his life as easily as he folded the letter into halves, quarters. Now the present moved forward like Samot was trapped on one of Samothes’ old trains; deafened and helpless, hurtling towards an uncertain future.

Now he had only cast dice, frames without doors, half-made plans that wilted in the enormity of the darkness curling at the edges of his vision. It had been hundreds of years since that day but Samot still felt… clumsy. Every glass shattered, every bottle of ink spilt was a reminder of how much he had failed Hieron, had failed his father, had failed his son, had failed—

It was torture.

If he let Arrell guide him into one of these alternate dimensions, he would at least have a shade of his old power back. He would have enough lifetimes to finish every half-fought battle he had foolishly started when he was younger, when he thought that sheer force of will was enough to keep what he loved out of harm’s way. He was older now, and perhaps that was something he did owe to the Erasure. He had learned. He had changed.

Samot brought a hand to his mouth and let out a laugh that dragged weakly against his throat on its way out. He wondered, if he met Samothes again, if the king-god would even recognize him.

Thousands of years with his books, passing in a single moment. Another chance to fix everything. It was tantalizing.

_Please, Samot._

He tucked Arrell’s letter into the inside pocket of one of his heaviest coats. It was snowing in Rosemerrow.

 

\--

 

He woke in a bedroom— their bedroom. As soon as his eyes fluttered open, panic moved through him like cold water on an empty stomach. Even through a haze of drowsiness, he could make out its achingly familiar golden walls, the clutter of sketches and half-read books layered atop each other over every surface, the handmade chime jingling as a warm breeze sang through the open window.

The mansion. The woods.

This was wrong, wasn’t it?

Beside him, the silhouette of a man was traced by the half-lidded light of early morning like gold lining on the edge of fine dishware. Samot’s eyes were slow to adjust, but he knew who it was. Of course he did.

Whatever truth he had been grasping at in his first wakeful moments was eclipsed by Samothes’ eyes flickering open and meeting his with a sleepy gaze. Even the dust motes stilled when he spoke.

“Bad dream?” The question was half-mumbled into the white fabric of his pillow, and it took Samot a few moments to remember how to respond.

“Yes,” Samot managed to rasp. “I was alone. You were dead. Maelgwyn… he- he killed you with that knife, that sword.”

Samothes let out a laugh like sunlight passing through leaves, something so real that Samot could feel it on his skin. It made him feel silly for saying anything out loud.

“That kid?” Samothes smirked lazily. “He’s getting bigger everyday, but I don’t think he’d be able to take me in a fight just yet.”

“Oh,” Samot said as he brought a trembling hand to his forehead. “Yes, of course. You’re right.”

That made a small line of concern grow between Samothes’ brows. “I could count the times you’ve said that to me on one hand.”

A tower. A broken glass. Snow. An eclipse.

The harder Samot tried to hold on to the images, the faster they disappeared. Wasn’t there something he was meant to do?

After a long moment, Samothes propped himself up on his elbow and carefully untwisted Samot’s other hand from the bed sheets, before pulling it gently to the dark skin of his abdomen. His own fingers felt cold and pale as he began to lightly trace over Samothes’ skin. Warm. Real. When he looked back up, Samot could see a crease from the pillowcase imprinted on Samothes’ cheek. He blinked back a feeling that he couldn’t put words to.

“See? No sword.”

In the warmth of their own bedroom, with every edge lined with golden light, with sweat beading on the back of Samot’s neck— the idea of snow in Hieron seemed impossible.

As distant as a dream.

Samothes’ grip slid up to Samot’s wrist, which he used to pull him gently towards him until their mouths were close enough to share the same breath.

“I’ll be fine, as soon as my mind quiets,” Samot whispered.

Samothes reached up to cup the back of Samot’s skull, as if the heat from his hands would loosen every twisted, knotted cord of thought in his brain.

“Let me help.” Samothes’ eyes were so bright. Samot closed his own.

Samothes kissed him like the longest day of summer, warm and excruciatingly slow, pushing him incrementally until Samot’s back was pressed against the dark wood of the bed frame. The steadiness of Samothes’ warm shadow over him felt like a small mercy; Samot could only focus on the molten points where their bodies were touching— the velvet slide of tongue, the hand tracing circles around his hipbone, the muscled thigh between his.

Samothes’ mouth moved a slow path from Samot’s lips to the underside of his jaw to the dip of his collarbone, and Samot thought about the lava that ran below Samothes’ forge. He felt every shadowed corner of his body light up in its wake. Desire expanded against the edges of his skin like the birth of a new divine impulse.

Samot was awake now.

He ran his fingers through dark curls, scraping his nails lightly against Samothes’ scalp before tightening his grip and pulling up.

“There you are,” Samothes said in a hitched breath, smiling into Samot’s mouth.

Samot let out a laugh, strange and raw, before taking Samothes’ bottom lip between his teeth.

In quick response, Samothes’ grip on Samot’s hipbone moved to the small of his back— slotting their hips together in an aching slide. Samot grinned around the swollen flesh of Samothes’ mouth, and rocked forward, and then again, making sure to punctuate each motion with another bite.

Samot felt Samothes grow more desperate against him, the tremor of his thigh muscle under Samot’s hand, the hot gasps between their mouths— so he drew back, leaning his weight on his heels in order to look at the other man with a ruthless smile.

It took a long moment for Samothes’ eyes to come back into focus, but his gaze sharpened to a crest of glittering affection, like sunlight on the surface of a river.

“You—” Samothes sighed, brushing a strand of golden hair from Samot’s cheek and tucking it behind his ear, “—glorious creature.”

Samot’s breath caught as another wave of longing tore through him, despite the fact that Samothes was here, alive, in front of him— hair wild, mouth swollen, dark flush across his skin, cock hard and straining against his abdomen. Samot wanted to ruin him. He wanted to rip open his chest and sleep inside it. He wanted. He wanted.

So he took— clutching at Samothes’ shoulders with a hunger for something he couldn’t name, and pinned him back against the white sea of cotton sheets.

Samothes watched, enthralled, as Samot leaned down and tongued a bead of sweat running down the side of Samothes’ neck. He continued down his body in a warpath of teeth and tongue, scratching against the side of Samothes’ ribs in a mirrored course of his mouth. He felt the king-god shaking under his hands.

It was a wonder, Samot thought, that Samothes had never tried to take a hammer to Samot’s ragged edges and forge him into something bright and gleaming, something more fitting of a god. Samot knew his beginnings. He knew he had a dark capacity dwelling in his body; a violence that ran deep, black creek water beneath a layer of ice.

He must’ve lingered too long in the rich brown expanse of skin leading down to Samothes’ arousal, lost in thought, because he felt the warmth of a broad hand against his cheek.

“I may forget that I adore you,” Samothes said with a shaky smile, “if you do not put me out of my misery soon.”

If Samothes put his ear against Samot’s chest, Samot thought that he might be able to hear a sound ripping through him, sharp, the first crack in the ice after a long winter, splitting him into pieces. He dug his fingernails deeper into Samothes’ skin, desperate to hold on.

How could he have even dreamed of living without this?

“Well then,” Samot breathed, before taking him into his mouth.

 

\--

 

The sweat on their skin had long since cooled when the morning grew quiet once again. Samot had settled against Samothes’ side in an alignment of limbs that felt familiar and tectonic, but he kept his eyes open.

He watched the chime in the window dance in the breeze over the curve of Samothes’ back. He watched as Samothes’ body swelled with the quiet rhythm of slow, steady breaths. He watched himself unconsciously run his fingers through the strands of dark hair splayed on the pillow beside him, as if to check that touch was something he was still allowed to do.

As the silence stretched over them, something in Samot’s leg tightened, like a growing pain, and he felt the urge to tear himself from the warmth of the bed and head to his study. His fingertips itched.

But Samothes must have felt him fidgeting, attuned to Samot’s nerves in the many years they had shared a bed, and he felt a warm hand on his thigh and a voice in his ear. “Not yet. Sleep.”

The chime rang once, twice.

It could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first time i've written smut and the first fic i've finished in years…… samsam is powerful y'all
> 
> catch me crying abt this podcast on twitter @mixolydias


End file.
